Structural Steel in Buildings: a Review of the First Report of the Steel Structures Research Committee

It has been felt for a long time by those with much practical experience that the
statutory requirements governing the employment of structural steel in buildings were
quite unnecessarily onerous and tended to produce structures unnecessarily expensive, in which the economic benefit to be derived from the proper employment of constructional steel was to a large extent lost. Consulting engineers in particular have been in revolt against this attitude for many years, and have been firmly convinced that a lower standard of strength, i.e., smaller floor loads and higher
stresses ought to be permitted. This view was also taken by the Steelwork Association,
who took the long view that if steel buildings could be really economically designed with limitations imposed only by physical requirements and not by indefensible statutory requirements, it would in-the long run benefit industry from every angle.
In conformity with this general idea of cheapening building with steel and doing
whatever research was necessary to define authoritatively the proper standard in regard
to all matters in connection with its employment, the Committee of Council, after con-
sulting the Institution of Civil Engineers,arranged for the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research to arrange for this scheme of co-operative investigations.